Sociology

Question 1

What is hierarchy and how is related to society?

Answer 1

• ranking system used in any particular environment based in authority to power
• in order to distinguish between these roles people are expected to dress act act an certain way
• an individual can play many different roles in society

Question 2

What is sociology?

Answer 2

The study of the development and structure of human society, including social life, social change, and the social causes and consequences of human behaviour

Question 3

What is hierarchy and what is its importance within society?

Answer 3

• ranking system used in any particular environment based on authority to power
• in order to distinguish between these roles people are expected to dress and act a certain way
• a person can play many different roles in society

Question 4

How are rules, norms and values important within society?

Answer 4

Values: a particular set of value is assigned to each role, in which the practitioners of these roles are expected to accept and display these values.
Norms: rules set out for a particular role that are considered standard behaviour
Rules: developed by cultures based on their system of values

Question 5

What is deviance?

Answer 5

Any behaviour that is different from the societal norm. It is deviant because we, as a society, do not accept it. This can range from eccentricities to harmful behaviour

Question 6

How is rehabilitation related to sociology?

Answer 6

Society tries to re-educate and re-socialize inmates so that they can grow to accept society’s values and norms

Question 7

What is structural functionalism?

Answer 7

• The belief that each society should provide its members with the fundamental requirements for functioning
• this includes fulfilling material needs, a system for socializing and educating the young, a way of regulating human reproduction (usually marriage), ect.
• not concerned with change but instead with how society works to meet needs

Question 8

What is Marxism?

Answer 8

• the key to understanding society is that economic power leads to political power
• social change is the result of change in the economic system
• economic system creates a rich class of owners and a poor class of workers

Question 9

What is symbolic interactionism?

Answer 9

• the belief that humans have complex brains and little instinctive behavior, meaning they can interpret for themselves the stimuli received in daily life and attach their own meanings
• how individuals interpret what we observe in society, not society’s institutions, that form the core of our value system

Question 10

What is inclusionism?

Answer 10

• inclusionists recognize that conflict could take place in a society between ethic, racial and religious groups , as well as economic classes
• original belief that cultural majority would absorb the minority
• however, after changing immigration policies, it became apparent that minorities were able to maintain their native culture

Question 11

What are the three early ideas explaining social change?

Answer 11

Decay: all societies begin in an ideal state and change is caused by disintegration or decline ex. Spirituality to materialism
Cycles of Growth & Decay: societies don’t head inevitably towards decay, but go through cycles of growth and decay
Progress: each new society builds on the ideas and experiences of its predecessors, and social institutions change as a result